


One cold damp evening, the world stood still

by bookmarksorganization



Series: These are the days—it never rains but it pours [2]
Category: Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: (Nice), (sort of), Body Swap, Happy Ending, Love Confessions, M/M, Metaphysical Sex, POV Crowley (Good Omens), Post-Bus Ride (Good Omens), Pre-Scene: Body Swap (Good Omens), Scene: The Bus Ride (Good Omens), Sharing a Bed, body swap sex, nice, the pronouns are intentionally a bit confusing during the body swap
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-14
Updated: 2020-02-14
Packaged: 2021-02-19 11:28:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,084
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22677025
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bookmarksorganization/pseuds/bookmarksorganization
Summary: Crowley and Aziraphale finally say things to each other, have a weird night, and live happily.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Series: These are the days—it never rains but it pours [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1631380
Comments: 7
Kudos: 49





	One cold damp evening, the world stood still

**Author's Note:**

> This is set as a continuation of my fic [Atomic Omens](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21860077/chapters/52172185), to give it a proper fully-happy ending, but you don’t need to read it for context. Just assume they banged a couple of times in the 80’s (Crowley was doing the femme-fatale thing at the time) before realizing it was a bad idea with their respective sides still in the picture, and that they made a point of establishing more distance between each other again, after. 
> 
> Also Crowley took out a particularly awful angel (permanently) once, at Heaven’s behest (backchannels, etc), but you can just as easily h/c the nephilim or whatevs for where that is briefly referenced.

They were sitting together on the bus, and Aziraphale reached out and took his hand.

Crowley looked at him, startled. 

Aziraphale was smiling tightly, but he softened as he shook his head and said, “It doesn’t matter anymore, does it?” He looked shocked, and tired.

Crowley turned his own hand over, under the angel’s, to put their palms together. He gave Aziraphale’s hand a gentle squeeze. “Guess not,” he said, 

They fell back into silence. Aziraphale seemed overwhelmed. Crowley assumed he was mostly processing the loss of Heaven. He wondered if Aziraphale had done the math on what was next for them.

Crowley knew Hell was coming for him. _Choose your faces wisely._ What had that meant? Heaven would probably do the same, though he didn’t think they’d try to destroy Aziraphale. No, it would be re-education, or imprisonment, or maybe—maybe he’d Fall. And if he fell, Hell would destroy him, of course. That’s definitely what was waiting for Crowley, unless he could figure out a way to stop it.

He’d already given up hope twice in one day. He wasn’t going for a third. They just had to think.

So he took the leash off of his brain, and let it run free.

When the bus pulled up to his flat, he hadn’t gotten anywhere, yet. He stood, tugging Aziraphale up with him because they were still holding hands. “Sorry,” Crowley said, letting go.

Aziraphale shook his head and straightened his coat and stepped out into the aisle. Crowley followed him off the bus, snapping the needed conditions (nobody noticing or minding the detour too much, a re-route to Oxford, bit of protection from any consequences of lateness for the driver and the few passengers) into place before they stepped out.

They stood there, on the curb in front of Crowley’s building. They both reached back out to take the other’s hands, again.

In the elevator, Crowley resisted the urge to turn and stare at Aziraphale. They were edging into new—well, old, but new territory. Aziraphale would know what came next.

Crowley let go of his hand, to get his keys out and unlock the door. Aziraphale followed him inside, and then Crowley remembered what was waiting and stopped so abruptly (cheers for survival instincts) that Aziraphale nearly walked into him.

Crowley turned towards Aziraphale, whose eyebrows were raised in expectation. 

“Um,” he said.

Aziraphale didn’t prompt him. He waited.

“So,” Crowley tried again. “Um.”

Aziraphale searched his face, clearly trying to understand—probably seeing if he could piece it together from his mental rolodex of Crowley’s nonverbal communication.

“Hastur and Ligur came for me. After we separated,” Crowley managed.

Trying-to-understand became concern.

Crowley continued, “So... “ 

You would have heard a pin drop. Maybe. 

“The holy water.”

Aziraphale did that thing he did with his expressions—where too many emotions happened too quickly. His eyes met Crowley’s, through the glasses.

“I destroyed Ligur,” Crowley said. “Hastur made it out—trapped him in my phone for a bit, then discorporated him on the M25. Probably going to have an uncomfortable conversation, there, next time we cross paths.”

“But, you’re okay,” Aziraphale said, then. And he didn’t condemn Crowley’s actions. Crowley couldn’t even tell if he cared.

“Uh—physically I’m fine. Yeah. Rest’ll sort itself out. You saw me in the pub.”

“I didn’t. I couldn’t see anything.”

“Oh.” That made Crowley feel like he was going to have to do more explaining, and he didn’t like it. It wasn’t like he cared so much about saving face. He’d pretty much put all his cards on the table at this point. It’s just that he was just overwhelmed, from everything.

Crowley edged up to the second door, the one that led to his office, and leaned over to push it open, not wanting to step any closer. Melted Ligur was still just past the threshold.

Aziraphale blanched. He was quiet, for a while, not blinking, then blinking a lot, and Crowley shifted his weight from foot to foot, not knowing what came next.

“Why don’t you go make us drinks?” Aziraphale said, voice too light. “I’ll deal with this. I won’t be able to think of anything else unless I do.”

Crowley had no idea how to dispose of a melted demon. He had been seriously considering moving, if he survived the week. He nodded and went to his living room.

What to drink after being sort-of-conveniently-adjacent to saving the world, now in some _between_ where they both might go extinct at any moment?

Eh, whisky.

Crowley magicked up some nice big ice cubes from the freezer and chose an absurdly expensive limited-edition Glenmorangie. 

Aziraphale came into the living room. He walked over to Crowley. His eyes were red.

Crowley faltered. He started to pick up one of the drinks, to give to the angel, and then Aziraphale grabbed fistfuls of his jacket and pulled him close. He wrapped his arms around Crowley. He held him so tightly that it almost hurt.

“I’m so glad I gave you that holy water,” he said, into Crowley’s hair.

Crowley tried to process the present reality of Aziraphale holding him, and he relaxed, in increments. He wished he had something clever to say. Instead, he resisted the urge to wrap his legs around the angel—to coil around him in this human body—which would definitely send them off balance and to the floor. He kept it to just the arms, as he hugged Aziraphale back.

Aziraphale smelled like soap, and antiques, and himself—pheromones that lit Crowley’s brain up like a pinball machine. And behind all that was ozone. Holiness.

He was solid in Crowley’s arms. _Here_. 

Crowley wanted to stay like that, maybe for a week, but they were running out of time.

“Aziraphale, they’re going to come for us.”

Aziraphale pulled back, and nodded, shakily. “Okay,” he said. “You’d mentioned Agnes’s prophecy.” (When had Crowley mentioned Agnes’s prophecy? Hours ago?) “Do you have any ideas?”

“Nothing,” Crowley said. “I’ve been thinking—trying to think. Choose our faces wisely. Playing with fire.”

Only he’d figured one thing out. “I know what Hell is going to do. They’re going to use holy water, for me. They can’t resist the irony.”

He caught the second of horror, before Aziraphale repressed it. “They’re going to use hellfire, for me,” he said, blankly.

“You’re sure?” Crowley said, knowing he was.

“I think I’m as certain as I could be about this.”

“Heaven doesn't execute angels,” Crowley said, knowing that wasn’t true, having been there for the precedent.

“There have been exceptions. I, uh, would have thought the same thing a week ago, where I was concerned, but… well, it’s all been a series of disappointments from them.” He tried to smile. It was brittle, and he grew serious, again. “It makes sense. It’s how Agnes would phrase it.”

“So choose our faces,” Crowley said again, thinking about that. They seemed to realize it at the same time.

“We swap corporations,” Aziraphale said.

“Do you know how we can do it?”

“I haven’t the slightest.”

Crowley passed him a tumbler of whisky. 

They sat on his couch, and began to plan.

* * *

“So—uh, you just move your molecules around my molecules, and then we’ll have each other’s physical molecules.”

“Okay,” Crowley said, nodding. “But won’t that sort of… get us a bit close. You remember, how we relied on having a physical barrier, before.”

When they’d taken things too far, in Berlin, in the late-80’s—a few very unwise, very wonderful nights together that had made everything so much worse. 

Aziraphale had said, _“Though I’m not sure this would be advisable if we weren’t in our human bodies—probably a bit of a buffer.”_ as he’d been on top of her (Crowley had been her, at the time), and from everything Crowley had seen, gotten hints of, he’d been right. Even when Aziraphale’s power had come too close to the edges of his human form, it had felt like being submerged in light—light that would slowly illuminate every bit of Crowley’s shadowed self until there was nothing left. It had been fathomless. And he would have gone, happily. Aziraphale’s fundamental elements were, well, sort of paradoxical to him. 

Aziraphale blushed. Crowley grinned, reflexively, before he could try to be cool. Aziraphale closed his eyes and shook his head a little, seemingly to refocus himself. He was still blushing

“Yes.” He cleared his throat. “—um, I share your concern, but we aren’t going to be mixing our essences or anything. We can try things out. And well, if it isn’t possible, we can… metaphysically back away slowly, or something. I hope.” 

Crowley watched a thought occur to him. “Will you hold your hand out?” Aziraphale asked.

Crowley did, and Aziraphale touched it… just curling the tips of their fingers against each other—the way you’d hold hands in some types of partnered dance, to keep things easy to shift, and adjust.

“Let’s try to get our… non-human selves a bit closer to each other and see what happens. Be prepared to pull back.”

Crowley nodded, nervous, but knowing they had to try.

Focusing on his fingertips, he let his physical presence thin: there. Let himself stretch out—surface more into this plane of reality and up through the confines of his corporation.

Aziraphale’s eyes fluttered shut. “Oh, God,” he whispered.

And then Crowley felt Aziraphale, a breath—a cut—of brilliance at the edge of things, and then against Crowley in a way they’d never done before.

If Crowley had been standing, his knees would have buckled. 

Their edges slid together. It felt destructive, but they weren’t being destroyed. It was almost like the resistance of a magnet. It was frankly, awfully similar to the oblivion of an orgasm. If orgasms transcended space and multiple planes of existence. 

They could come up against each other, but they were fundamentally different. There was no coalescence, and no destruction. Crowley supposed it could hurt, if that was what either of them had intended, but it was the last thing they wanted. Instead it was just… beyond anything. It was Aziraphale. They were, in every facet of reality, holding themselves very still.

Aziraphale: incandescent and devastating. Crowley had missed him. He adored him. 

Crowley moved carefully, by molecules.

Aziraphale sighed and Crowley’s lips parted. They met each other’s eyes.

“Um, so, not harmful, then,” Aziraphale said.

Crowley nodded. He wanted desperately to keep going, but Aziraphale was the one who’d determine where this would go.

Aziraphale’s pupils were blown open. “We should… we shouldn’t wait much longer, in that case.”

He was right. Crowley slowly pulled back. “I think they’re going to need to regroup, but honestly I’d rather not chance it.”

“Neither would I, but first—would you take off your glasses?”

He hadn’t expected that, but he did. Aziraphale hadn’t asked him to do that since, _oh_ , Aziraphale cupped his face like he was something precious, and kissed him, softly. He drew back and looked into his eyes. “Just in case.”

Crowley’s thoughts stuttered out, for a few moments. But, then he found that he was smiling.

Aziraphale was smiling back. His eyes were bright.

“And, one other thing, actually,” he said. “Crowley, you’re my best and only friend. I love you. Perhaps in a very human way. I love you, singularly, and I love you more than anything in creation”

Crowley’s thoughts didn’t stutter out. Crowley’s thoughts dropped off a cliff.

Aziraphale’s face fell.

“Oh, you didn’t know.” he said, pulling his hands back with a crestfallen expression. _No, don’t be sad, angel, what?_

“Wh—why would I have known that?” Crowley said, lost.

“Couldn’t you feel it?”

 _Oh._ “You’re an angel. You love everyone. I’d noticed that I was included in that at some point. That was… enough. I wasn’t—it didn’t occur to me, no.”

Aziraphale opened his mouth to start to say something, probably to apologize.

“No, apologize to me if we live through this. You owe me several apologies, by the way.”

Aziraphale looked guilty, and didn’t protest.

Crowley took his hands, held both of them. He gave it his best shot.

“I love you, too. I loved you before I even knew what love was. I’d only ever known it as part of what I felt in Heaven, before. It was so different, with you. I didn’t figure it out until I heard humans talking about it. It’s funny, isn’t it?”

Aziraphale was gazing at him, so fond. Crowley continued, “Probably my favorite thing about humans, is that they helped me realize how I felt about you. I didn’t look too closely at it that way, most of the time, but it’s pretty much in every part of me, the love I feel for you. ”

He kissed Aziraphale, who returned it with feeling. They wrapped themselves around each other and for moments, they let themselves give into it. They were in love, and finally, they were together. On their own side.

But they were running out of time. With incredible bravery and resolve, Crowley pulled away.

“Let’s make the rest of tonight really weird.”

They held hands, again, and concentrated. They picked apart, freed up, their corporations' atoms and elements and, with incredible care, began to trade them between themselves.

It was infinitely difficult, to stay focused. Crowley couldn’t resist sliding himself against Aziraphale’s being like a cat, and Aziraphale responded in kind, crackles of power and bliss arcing across his being, scintillating over Crowley.

They traded molecules between them, passed them about until they were reconstructed, one step over.

Crowley opened his eyes, to a mirror image of himself. Only, the mirror image was _wrong—oh, because it wasn’t mirrored_. He was dirty, with dust and ash and asphalt, but it added to the whole devil-may-( _definitely does, shut up_ )-care vibe. It was time for a new look, after all this was over. Something that wouldn’t remind him.

He was frowning at himself. Er— _Aziraphale_ was frowning at him.

Crowley raised his eyebrows, Aziraphale grinned. “It just—looks so bizarre, on my face,” he said, voice higher and accent strange in Crowley’s mouth.

Crowley stretched, feeling the strength in this new form. “I’ve always loved your body,” he said. “You have no idea how much I thought about it. It’s weird, feeling it from the inside.”

Aziraphale’s smile became something terribly prim, _bastard_. Crowley hadn’t even thought his face could do that.

“ _Aziraphale_ ,” he said, scandalized. Well, that was a familiar tone.

Aziraphale started to speak a few times and then gave up. And he was still smiling, wider.

Crowley still wanted him, but he was well, _him_ and it made the whole thing weird. Maybe.

“I want to hug you, and kiss you, but you’re currently me.”

Crowley went to him and put his arms around him. Felt himself there, slender and sinuous, but there was a solidness to him, too. And underneath all of that was Aziraphale, the being he’d loved through the life of this planet. 

Aziraphale’s eyes had lost their human border of white. He didn’t have Crowley’s control, yet. “I’ve never seen your bedroom,” he said.

Crowley rubbed his back, absentmindedly, and then took his hand and led him through the apartment.

Aziraphale stopped short, in the hallway. “That’s from the church.”

The eagle podium.

Crowley nodded. 

“That was when I realized I was in love with you.”

Crowley gaped at him “Less than a hundred years ago?”

“I obviously loved you b—”

“ _Is_ it obvious?” He was laughing. Oh, it was Aziraphale’s laugh. That was nice, too.

“—before that,” Aziraphale said. “I know I move at a glacial pace.”

Crowley pulled him close again. “I love your pace. Your pace kills me. But it’s yours, so I love it. Which... is... bizarre to say out loud. I wouldn’t ever ask you to be different, with the exception of apocalypses.”

Aziraphale held him tightly. “Take me to your bed, let’s try to sleep.” When he pulled away, he snapped his fingers and the remnants of the burnt Bentley ( _fuck, the Bentley_ , every time the reality of that hit home—the realization of that made this stomach twist) and the fire and the asphalt and all of it evaporated. They were both clean.

They turned into his bedroom. Aziraphale said “Oh, good lord.”

“Do you have a bed?” Crowley asked him.

“...yes.” he said, unconvincingly.

“Last time you checked.”

“It’s probably still there.”

Crowley started to snap his fingers to change and then had several realizations at once: His pajamas wouldn’t fit. It was Aziraphale’s body. He should ask Aziraphale. 

“I would like to not wear this much to sleep in, and I don’t want to assume your comfort level with what I do with your corporation,” he said.

“You can do whatever you like with it. Um, I suppose I should ask you the same.”

“Anything, angel.”

Aziraphale held his hands out, turned them over, admiringly. “I love your hands.” He shrugged off the jacket, folded it, and looked at Crowley. “Where do I put these?”

“Um.” Normally they just reappeared in the closet. “Nightstand?”

Aziraphale nodded. He took the shirt off. “I wish you had a mirror.”

“That can absolutely be arranged.” Crowley did snap his fingers then, and the wall closest to them shifted.

Aziraphale turned to look at himself. “Your body really is beautiful,” he said. 

Crowley had an idea then, and he walked behind Aziraphale—held him like that. Aziraphale sighed and relaxed back against him. He tilted his chin up to kiss Crowley, and they shared what would be the most awkward kiss of their incomprehensibly long lives. 

“Weird,” Crowley whispered against his own mouth, not remotely put off, as he kissed Aziraphale/himself again. 

At first, seeing the reflection of Aziraphale’s form holding Crowley’s, it was easy to forget who-inhabited-who and to try and move the wrong body. Crowley rested his chin on Aziraphale’s shoulder, somewhat clumsily. “Maybe last night on Earth. What do you want to do?”

Aziraphale smiled back at their mirrored selves. “Though I wouldn’t have picked the circumstances, I’m exactly where I want to be.”

“Mm,” Crowley said, and kissed his cheek. They stood there like that, for some time, just looking back at themselves. They’d never seen each other in the other’s arms.

After some time, Aziraphale turned in his embrace, and kissed him. Crowley leaned into it, and things shifted from graceless to hot. Their lips parted and Aziraphale was undoing the buttons of his vest with much greater ease than Crowley would have managed, and Crowley realized he knew exactly how to touch the body Aziraphale was in.

“I have an idea,” he breathed, between their parted lips.

“Wonderful,” murmured Aziraphale, pushing his jacket off of Crowley.

Crowley turned him back around, and undid the button of his jeans.

“Oh,” Aziraphale breathed.

Crowley reached past the waistband of his pants and wrapped his hand around his cock with absolute expertise.

Aziraphale’s head fell back. “Oh my—oh… _fuck._ ” He’d already been half-hard and it had taken no time at all to pull him over the rest of the way. Crowley used power to coat his hand slick, and he rotated his wrist, twisted his palm around the head of his cock, and stroked back down. 

Aziraphale put a hand against the back of Crowley’s neck. He clung to him, partially to stay upright. Minutes passed, that way, but then Aziraphale spoke, and said, “I’m—this is very, uh… but let’s take this to a horizontal position before my legs give out.”

Crowley withdrew his hand and Aziraphale turned, miracling their clothes off. He stopped, and looked down at himself… at Crowley’s—well, Crowley’s body’s—currently Aziraphale’s—cock. He looked back up at Crowley, with a slow lift of his lashes that was absolutely deliberate. “That’s a change, from last time.”

Crowley grinned. “One of these days we’re going to fully undress the human way.” There had to be a future.

Aziraphale followed him to bed. They crawled under the sheets, and Aziraphale cuddled up to him and for a while, they just lay there. But curiosity, and desire, were still a vibrating undercurrent and soon Crowley was between Aziraphale’s thighs, with the angel hilt-deep.

Aziraphale was making soft, overcome noises. Gasps, and sighs, and single whispered words—beyond capacity for anything else. When he threaded his hands into his hair, he whispered a soft "oh" and coughed out a laugh that was bit back into a whimper. 

Crowley was more-than-human flexible. This was, in more ways than one might expect, not a first. Though the angle was new. He relaxed his jaw, let the slide and suck of his throat take each movement of Aziraphale hips all the way down.

He knew how to keep this body on an edge of things, and would have been delighted to lose himself in that, but Aziraphale said “Crowley”—and Crowley drew back.

Aziraphale pulled him up beside him in the bed, and they fell back together, entwining themselves around each other. Their breath passed between them as they kissed, as Aziraphale whispered, “I love you.” and took hold of him. Crowley leaned his forehead against him, steadied himself as Aziraphale sent waves of sensation over and through him with deliberate strokes. He’d done the same lube miracle. Crowley was managing to survive this; the hellfire would be fine. 

Aziraphale’s grip shared the same certainty as Crowley had felt—6000 years in these bodies. They knew them in every sense of the term. 

It felt impossibly good.

He could have stayed like this. He would have been happy with anything they did, for ages. But he was also wondering—as much as his thoughts were managing any sort of order—what other things might feel like, what Aziraphale would feel as Crowley fucked him, what Crowley would feel as Aziraphale as Aziraphale as Crowley _oh, his brain was not working._

Aziraphale had moved, so that his head was resting on Crowley’s shoulder. He noticed some change and shifted enough to say, “What do you want?” where Crowley could hear.

“Whatever you want,” Crowley gasped out.

“I want you,” Aziraphale said, not changing the soft rotation of his hand.

“That never gets old.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

“Will you fuck me?” 

“Yes.”

Aziraphale shifted lower in the bed and turned over to face Crowley. He changed his grasp on his cock to something less intense, and he ran a hand up Crowley’s thigh. Crowley took the cue and pulled his knees up. He spread his legs open and oh, _fuck_ , oh, fuck, Aziraphale touched the edge of him, brushed his fingers over that center with a delicateness that made Crowley whimper and tilt his hips up, seeking more.

Fuck—the way Aziraphale’s body responded. Hunger, and pleasure—so perfect. Aziraphale touched him then, in a way that was more deliberate. He rubbed his slick fingers in circles, slowly increasing the pressure as he went, until he was pushing just barely inside, on the upward stroke.

Aziraphale’s body didn’t short-out with the same speed Crowley’s would have. If they hadn’t swapped, Crowley would have been in tears and without a vocabulary by this point, but he was alight, his body resonating with the pleasure Aziraphale had cast through it. He followed the rhythm he set, and Aziraphale pushed two fingers deeper inside of him.

Crowley moaned.

Aziraphale found that place inside of him, and he rubbed over it. Crowley was yielding, the ring of muscle deeper in his body pulling against the angel’s fingers when they would withdraw, for moments, only to push into him again. 

Aziraphale was holding his cock, but his hand was still, and Crowley could feel himself dripping, tight in his grip.

Aziraphale added a third finger, _superfluous_ —that’s the thing that Crowley thought, with a rush of affection and delight at the idea so intense that he got very close, very suddenly. 

Aziraphale stilled. “I felt that from here,” he said, amused, but there was more to it—amazement, hunger.

Crowley watched him.

Aziraphale drew his fingers back, and bent over Crowley’s cock, licking across the length of him, then over the pooled fluid with a sound that shouldn’t have made things tighten and pulse, but _did_. He took his cock into his mouth and up to the back of his throat with obvious skill. Of course he was good at every version of this. And he’d just ditched the minimal bit of gag reflex he’d had with the change of form.

Crowley carefully lifted his hips up, testing, and Aziraphale sighed and sucked him deeper, pressing his lips to the base of him. The flat of his tongue slid over the underside of him.

Crowley twined fingers into his hair, and fucked his mouth. Aziraphale was hot, around him. A slide of velvet heat and _he was definitely going to come like this._

“Aziraphale,” he said. And Aziraphale nodded, grabbed his hips to pull him closer without breaking his rhythm.

Crowley let go. The orgasm was like fireworks, throughout his body—bursts of sparks that cascaded through him. He felt himself spill into Aziraphale. _Fuck_ , the idea of that. He heard Aziraphale moan, felt him swallow Crowley down.

Aziraphale pulled back, moved up to kiss him, and he tasted himself—tasted Aziraphale on the angel’s tongue. 

“Can I fuck you?”

“Yes, please, yes.”

Aziraphale moved over him, lifted Crowley’s thigh up, and held himself there at his entrance. He pushed inside, slowly. Crowley felt himself stretch, opening so easily, to the slide of him—deeper—this is what Aziraphale would feel, if Crowley fucked him: warmth, and radiating fulfillment. This body had been shaped by Aziraphale, and Aziraphale loved pleasure. 

Aziraphale was frowning. Before Crowley could try to check, Aziraphale said, “I’m just adjusting. The way you feel things in your whole body is very—” he pushed into him further and it pulled a noise out of Crowley. “—distracting. I could just lie here.”

He leaned over Crowley, supporting himself with a bent arm while he still held Crowley’s thigh. Crowley touched the side of his face, looked into those eyes that spilled golden out to his lashes. 

He could feel Aziraphale’s love. He realized he’d felt it for a very long time. In the Bastille, and probably before, and so many afters. In Berlin, where it felt like being in the center of nuclear transmutation (and it could feel like that now, but he knew that Aziraphale loved him, and that they weren’t so dangerous to each other after all, and that changed something) Crowley had thought, in Berlin, _This is what angels are._ like Crowley didn’t know better—whatever that meant. Anyway.

“This is your love, for me—I mean, isn’t it?” he said.

They were still, and in some ways, as close as they could get to each other. In others, they very intentionally contained themselves—but you didn’t notice that unless you thought about it, after thousands of years.

Aziraphale nodded. “I didn’t know if you could feel it.”

“I did. I just... thought it was you.”

“It is. But, it’s yours.”

 _Oh._ “I love you.”

Aziraphale kissed him. “I love you.” he echoed. He kissed him, again. Their lips parted, and Aziraphale thrust into him properly.

Crowley made a sound into the kiss, he wrapped his arms around Aziraphale and had to turn his head. He closed his eyes to adjust to the feeling of Aziraphale, like that. He’d grown more sensitive, while he’d waited—spread open and filled by him. 

He was almost sore, but then things became easier. Aziraphale had done another miracle, to ease any friction, to move things back into warmth, smoothness—a place inside Crowley that Aziraphale rubbed over again, and again as he fucked him.

They moved together, pulling each other closer, pressed against each other and Crowley could feel every part of himself illuminated. Crowley tilted his hips in corresponding angle to Aziraphale, and it was a rippling, exquisite thing—the time that passed as they were filled with greed, and lust, and absolute selfless devotion and pleasure that felt like it could bleed out of the material boundaries of their forms.

Eventually, Aziraphale reached between them, to take hold of Crowley and things sped towards something. They stared at each other, in motion, and Aziraphale pressed his mouth to Crowley’s in a bruising kiss that he pulled him down into and he felt him spill inside of him in a wave of heat that felt like it resonated out through his limbs and Crowley followed, striping over Aziraphale’s fingers and between them. 

They held each other as the world slowly faded back into their awareness. When his brain decided to do full sentences, Crowley looked over at the clock near the bed. It was past-5:00 AM in the morning. Sleep hadn’t happened. They stayed wrapped around each other, and talked, and didn’t talk, until it was time to part ways—to put their plan in motion.

They met again, briefly, in the park. And Heaven and Hell came for them.

They survived. 

They had lunch, and they went back to Aziraphale’s shop and Aziraphale showed him the new books. 

Crowley stayed.

* * *

Several weeks later, he was explaining to Aziraphale what he felt like, metaphysically-speaking, while he lay in the angel's lap.

“Do you know what you feel like?” Aziraphale said, interrupting.

Crowley stopped. “Oh.” He thought about that. “I don’t think I’d gotten much further than assuming demon-y. Blackness and sulfur.”

“You feel like… you’re warm, but you’re also very, very cold. Like space. It’s like, all of my muscles relax at once and all the tension goes out of me, and you’re this expanse, this pool that I want to immerse myself in. Every part of you wraps itself around me and makes things feel so amazingly good. And there is that feeling of danger, like what you describe. But, it’s not like I’m going to burn up. It makes me want to give in—to sink into you.”

Crowley smiled up at him. “That’s actually… kind of really nice?”

Aziraphale ran a finger under a lock of Crowley’s hair, brushed it back off his face. “Well, I’d say that I think you’re really nice, but…”

Crowley shifted a bit in his lap. “You can, if you want. I’m still getting used to it.”

And Aziraphale did.

**Author's Note:**

> The fic title is from ["Second Skin" by The Chameleons](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ldLk0rQORHY), which is a really beautiful song: 
> 
> _I realize a miracle, is due  
>  I dedicate this melody, to you  
> But is this the stuff dreams are made of?  
> If this is the stuff dreams are made of  
> No wonder I feel like I'm floating on air_
> 
> I'm on tumblr as [@various-things](https://various-things.tumblr.com/)
> 
> Thanks for reading. <3 Comments make my day.


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